Typically I would initiate a spiritual conversation with a question similar to this, “What do you believe happens to you when you die?”
However, I am questioning this tactic after reading the following from Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey:
In today’s post-Christian world, many people no longer even understand the meaning of crucial biblical terms. For example, the basic term sin makes no sense to people if they have no concept of a holy God who created us and who therefore has a right to require certain things of us. And if people don’t understand sin, they certainly don’t comprehend the need for salvation.
Consequently, in today’s world, beginning evangelism with the message of salvation is like starting a book at the middle–you don’t know the characters, and you can’t make sense of the plot. Instead, we must begin with Genesis, where the main character, God establishes himself as the Creator, and the “plot” of human history unfolds its first crucial episodes. And the scientific evidence supporting these episodes is powerful.
~p. 98, How Now Shall We Live?
It was three years ago that I began to pay attention to the science of the Bible. After studying the Noetic Flood and considering the true implications of such a world-wide catastrophic event, I realized I was scratching at the surface of the science within the Bible and creation.
Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey was the next step in opening my eyes to the necessity for Christians to understand and defend creation. This book identified and equipped me with a source which enables Christians to articulate the differences between creation and Darwinian evolution. For evolution is a tool, oddly enough, created from a staunch philosophy of naturalism: that all which exists comes from natural causes and laws in the known universe apart from any supernatural being.
The whole point of his (Darwin’s) theory was to identify a natural process that would mimic intelligent design, thus making design superfluous. ~ p. 94
It is nearly impossible to see the need for salvation apart from believing the evidence of intelligent design. Apart from knowing there is a God who created us, there is no need to build a relationship, or more accurately reconcile a relationship, between said God and man.
Most people sense instinctively that there is much more at stake here than a scientific theory–that a link exists between the material order and the moral order…Our origin determines our destiny. It tells us who we are, why we are here, and how we should order our lives together in society. Our view of origins shapes our understanding of ethics, law, education–and yes, even sexuality. ~p. 92
The Christian community of our day must equip itself to answer the tough questions and challenge the status quo which is: man is not above the animals but derived from them.
If you are willing to take the initial, or next sequenced step, toward the study of creation and developing a Christian world-view, then I highly recommend reading How Now Shall We Live? by Nancy Pearcey and the late Chuck Colson.
That is what I am reading this Wednesday. Thank you for joining me.
